A photographer clambers along mounds of potassium waste from the local salt mine in the town of Soligorsk, some 140 km south from Minsk on Wednesday. Soligorsk which translates into “The town of salt” has one of the biggest potassium deposits in the world

Soldiers of Belarus special mission unit take part in a demonstration at the cadet of the Suvorov military school during the traditional school year opening ceremony marking the start of the academic year in Minsk on Monday

A man runs with his dog through the cemetery in Kuropaty on the outskirts of Minsk where more than 100 Belarussians, including 22 writers and poets, were executed by the NKVD secret service, predecessor of the present-day Belarussian KGB secret service, on October 29 1937. The date is now marked as an unofficial day of commemoration for victims of political repression. Between 600,000 and 1.5m people fell victim to Stalin’s repressions in Belarus, according to various estimates.

Unemployed people pick cabbages at a state-owned vegetable factory on the outskirts of Minsk, Belarus, for $9.80 a day. All the factory’s employees, including engineers and office staff, also have to work at least several days in the fields without extra pay to bring in the vegetables before the first frost.

Belarus interior ministry troops take part in an exam outside Minsk to achieve the burgundy coloured “madder beret”, which signifies they have qualified as members of the ministry’s elite special forces

Belarussian Orthodox believers attend the solemn liturgy in Minsk, on Monday, to mark the 1,025th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia, which is celebrated in the three former USSR Slavic countries – Belarus, Russia and Ukraine

Belarus teenagers take part in a rehearsal of the Independence Day parade in Minsk, on Tuesday. Belarus celebrates Independence Day on Wednesday, an official holiday marking the day in 1944 when the Red Army liberated Minsk from Nazi troops during the second world war.